About 2004-1

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (Board) issued Recommendation 2004-1 titled "Oversight of Complex, High-Hazard Nuclear Operations" on May 21, 2004. The DOE accepted the Board's recommendation on July 21, 2004. The Department developed its statutorily-required Implementation Plan (IP) in response to the Board’s recommendation. The IP defines and describes specific actions that the Department has committed to complete to improve oversight of nuclear operations. These actions fit into three broad areas:

• Strengthening Federal Safety Assurance – the structure, practices, and methods by which the DOE’s federal technical personnel define safety expectations, monitor performance, and obtain effective implementation and continuous improvement.
   
• Learning from External Operating Experience – the practices by which the DOE and its contractors learn from the operating experience of others, in particular, from the recent NASA Columbia shuttle accident and the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant vessel head corrosion incident.
   
• Revitalizing Integrated Safety Management (ISM) Implementation – a set of actions the Department will pursue to re-confirm that ISM will be the foundation of the DOE's safety management approach and to address identified weaknesses in implementation.